The day before I left Tanzania, I was already grieving. I had been filled with such energy, such life, it was hard to leave. We had just spent several hours hiking the semi-tropical rainforest of Mahale on Lake Tanganyika, basking in the wonder of frolicking chimpanzees in their natural surroundings. I looked forward to one last walk in the mountains the next day, one last morning to soak in the sounds and images and energy of Africa, before I said good-bye.

My group was standing by the boat that would take us back to our tented lodging. Our guide asked us how many wanted to walk in the morning. He needed to tell the ranger to meet us, as no one is allowed to walk alone in the rainforest. I raised my hand. The only one. I immediately fell back into an old pattern of not wanting to cause any inconvenience. I didn’t want to make the ranger come just for me. “That’s ok,” I said. “I don’t need to walk.” Our guide looked deep into me. “If you want to do it,” he said, “then do it.”

So many things about Africa opened up the closed places in me. This last gift, this invitation to stay fully alive, given me by this generous-spirited guide, so alive himself, reminded me one more time how easy it is to slip back into a non-feeling place. Even in such a dynamic setting, when I was feeling so vibrant and so connected, I could make a choice that deadens, numbs my feelings and drains my energy. It struck me then, it strikes me now, how subtle such choices are in us.

Every choice I made in Tanzania impacted my energy and aliveness. Who I chose to ride with in the land rover for the day, whether or not I allowed myself to try a new experience,  how I chose to interact with the group — all this made a qualitative difference in my experience of Africa, in my experience of myself in Africa.

The more energy I put forth, the more energy I had. The more I connected with and was available to what the moment had to offer, the more the moment offered. The more I allowed myself to feel, the more I could feel. I see now,  energy and feelings and abundance are connected. The more you’re open to, the more is available.

Our feelings keep us close to our authentic self, where our real energy is. Identifying and honoring feelings releases energy held in the body and in the mind, producing new energy and making available energy that had been trapped. Energy comes from unknown parts of ourselves, released as we try new things, as we push our limits, as we reclaim parts of ourselves we previously split off, put down, neglected, often our most delicious parts.

When we don’t allow ourselves to be energized by this waking energy — when we disconnect from, trivialize or deny our feelings, for example — we walk around in a self-imposed malaise of discontent that robs our energy and prevents us from being open to the true abundance around us.

I find I trap vital energy in that black hole in the back pocket of my soul with a simple, “It doesn’t matter.” It doesn’t matter I looked forward to walking the mountains in the morning, soaking in sunlight through that lush canopy of green, delighting in the sounds and images of an African rainforest. It doesn’t matter I can draw on that energy and presence long after I’ve left this sacred ancestral ground. 

If you want to do it, then do it. With that simple phrase, our guide cleared away the blockage I was building between myself and my vitality. I was able to see clearly how I put to sleep, sabotage, discount the very part of me I enjoy. I was not asking too much, being too aggressive, too self-entitled. I put forth a genuine need that would satisfy something deep and wonderful in me, connect me more deeply with myself, something that would enlarge upon the energy and wellness I had released in myself those three weeks in Africa.

His words become an inner guide to shepherd me through my slippages and forgetting moments: Don’t put anything in your body, don’t put anything unsaid between yourself and another person, don’t put anything untried between yourself and a more liberated you, that will rob you of the aliveness, the passion, the energy you so want in your life. Know in your own mind what will be enough to fill you for now. Ask in a clear, specific manner. Then, let go of the outcome.

The ranger came that last morning in Africa, for me. I walked that holy gound through the rainforest alone, priviledged, graced, full to the brim.

It did matter.

We stood staring at the swollen river. If we did not get across, we wouldn’t get to our chartered plane. We’d miss Mahale and a major adventure that brought us to Africa. Our guide had already accomplished heroic feats to ensure our best in Tanzania, narrowly outwitting El Nino’s havoc.   

“Stay here,” said Thad, “I’ll try it first. If I get across, you follow.” His dauntless spirit had guided us through countless torrential escapes. We’d crossed deep rivers before. We watched — each of us, in spirit, behind the wheel — as he gunned it into swirling waters, his Land Rover aching to prove its steel. “Go, go, go!” we yelled. Hugging the adjoining bank, half in the river, half out, there was no fighting nature’s fury. The Land Rover, all our luggage, my camera, and Thad gave sway to the rushing torrent. His best effort could not out-manuever Mother Nature’s mischief.

We spent the afternoon fanning drenched clothes over our campfire, hanging them on briar bushes and heavy brush, until the rains, again, chased us under cover. Thad and his men worked tirelessly to pull his Land Rover from the river. At day’s end, the spirit of our group was only higher. 

Africa is rich in little life lessons. You discover yourself there as much as the land. Over and over, we learned, by fire: Focus on the moment and not the outcome. You cannot be angry, resentful, or place blame, when someone’s intentions are clear and pure. You participate in the outcome, take on responsibility yourself, by your acknowledgment and acceptance of their stated intent.  

There’s healing in letting go. Letting go of moments we disappoint, letting go of disappointment we experience from others. It frees up energy drained off by sulking. For ourselves, it is important to state clearly our intention, to be direct with our plan: I can be with you fifteen minutes. I can do this for you, but I cannot do that. I can be your friend; I cannot be your everything. State your intention clearly. Don’t get hung up on the outcome. It is up to the other to deal with their feelings, their disappointment.

When dealing with others, know their intention, clarify their limits, before making judgment about any outcome of their action. If we accept their intent, we have allowed what is to follow. The feelings are ours to deal with and resolve: If I clearly know your limits, I can deal more consciously with my own disappointment. If you have told me upfront the boundaries of our agreement, I will be less devastated by my wish for more.

The root meaning of to suffer is to allow.  If I know your intent, I allow what follows, but that does not mean it will come without suffering. When the Land Rover went into the river, there was anguish, but no blame, no anger. When I lost my camera to the river’s fury, I felt no blame towards our guide, as I had participated in his desire to try. If I felt loss, I also felt involved with the losing. This does not erase the sting of the moment.

What I learned from all this is a freeing, a letting go, a letting be of what is. My energy was free to embrace what was offered, usually an unexpected blessing or gift. Without my camera to obstruct my vision in moments of wondrous wildlife and nature, my soul was available to soak in images that will dance in me long after my photographs are put away. When one road was blocked to us, inaccessible, the road that was available only intensified my adventure. When I knew the intentions of those around me, I could relax, be myself, allow them to be who they are.

This whole river story cannot be told without a mention of the rainbow that graced us that day. It spirited us on to find another way, in the opposite direction, over a less swollen river. It colored our hope as we approached our chartered plane, as we lifted off for Mahale and the chimpanzees we came to see. It had followed us throughout Tanzania, became a sign for our journey. It’s intent to us was clear:  Things are good, look and see.

We were on one of our safari outings in Tanzania, roaming the open countryside, delighting in the spectacle of giraffes, lions, gazelles, buffalo bulls, wondrous game in their natural surrounding. We came upon an infant gazelle by the side of the dirt road, uninjured, apparently lost, waiting for his mama, certain she would find him, as mamas do. We moved on.

The next day, we passed the meadow again and found the baby gazelle rooted in the same spot. We all took a deep breath. Was his mother coming back? Was he lost? Would he die here, waiting by the side of the road? Should we just leave him to nature’s mercy? What was our responsibility? With lumps in our throats, we moved on.

I experienced the same hands-on, hands-off dilemma when I met a young African mother. She passed us on the muddy road, thongs on her feet, kanga wrap draped around her and a baby on her back. Her large black eyes smiled as I playfully cooed at her infant, the same age as my grandson. We were on our way to visit the Hadza, the ancient hunter-gatherers who live off the land as their ancestors did for centuries before them.

When we arrived at the Hadza village, she was there, sitting beside her grass hut, huddled with her baby and family and a few handmade items. I identified immediately. I saw my daughter Sarah in her, and my grandson Archer in her child. Here, sitting beneath a baobab tree, my Sarah and my Archer, protected only by a kanga wrap and a grass hut to keep them safe from the harsh elements of life.

I wanted to embrace my Archer, here and now, in her arms, to keep him safe, to protect him from the unknowns he faced, to ensure a satisfying life. We exchanged smiles, all we had with which to speak our connection across different worlds. Questions raced my mind: How will you protect him, feed him, when others move in to take your land? How will you protect yourself in a world that thinks of the world as theirs? I felt a lump in my throat as I realized I was of the world I called “theirs.”

Her smile spoke volumes, as if to say, “You cannot protect me any more than you can protect your grandson from what he is here on this earth to learn. Let me go, but allow me the right to live on this earth with the resources I need in order to learn what I am here to learn.”

I could move on only when I was assured that the safari company with whom we contracted is working to secure land for these Hadza families, so they can meet the insatiable demands of the outside world with more of a base and with some dignity.  Only then could I leave these gentle ones beneath their baobab tree, to delight in the magic and moods of Africa. We moved on.

These images – the infant gazelle by the side of the road, my Sarah and my Archer beside the grass hut – followed me home, literally, into my home. When my daughter Sarah met me at the airport and told me she was moving five hours away, that my Archer was no longer available to me on a regular basis, I called on these images and the energy they gave. The universe had prepared me for just this moment.

I had learned in Africa to trust, to turn over my infant gazelle and my Hadza mother and child to a larger will. I let go and turned over my grandson to that same higher reality. I relinquished any control I might have had of the filter through which he will receive the learnings and experiences he needs to live in the world – his world.

I can no more choose what kind of experiences he should have – whether books and classical music or college football games and a soul-snatching career – than I can choose a lifestyle for the Hadza peoples. I can no more protect him from the uncertainties of life than I could protect that baby gazelle.

I can make sure he has the full resources and opportunities he deserves in order to choose himself from a full deck. But, the universe has a wiser lesson plan for him than I can see now from my perspective. I have no idea what he is here on this earth to learn.

The universe softened me up, in Africa, so I could be open to what it had to teach me about letting go, about letting life be, about moving on to a new day. It was not without tears that I let Sarah and Archer go. It was not without wandering around in a daze, disoriented, confused about my own future and personal meaning. But I had been prepared.

The universe had taught me to find the light in an otherwise dark, confusing circumstance. I could turn my loved ones over to that same mother universe. It took a Hadza mother from around the world and a lost baby gazelle to show me this.

The roads are not paved in Tanzania. They stretch out like long dirt fingers through the lush green valleys and high rolling mountains, vulnerable to the whims of nature, the brute determination of land rovers, and the fickle attention of politics. They reflect the unpredictability, the fierce and natural openness to whatever the universe offers, and the sense of enoughness that is so evident in the peoples there.

I ventured to this third world African country the same winter that El Nino plowed into it. Torrential rains and knee deep ruts left the roads impassable, our planned destinations improbable, and my  preconceived notions of what I would experience obliterated. What I received instead was a spirit of adventure and a passionate absorption in the moment:  Would the road ahead be washed out? Should we go this way or that? Can we get over this raging stream without our land rover getting stuck? What is ahead for us today?

This take-it-one-day-at-a-time experience mirrored every aspect I encountered of African life. We met the Hadza, that ancient tribe of hunter-gatherers who set out every day with their homemade spears and undaunted spirits in search of what they need to eat and live for just that day. Their grass huts contain only open dirt hearths that shelter nothing except one another and their obvious deep connection with the earth and family. We carried their spirit with us, traveled Africa ourselves, as Hadzas, hunting and gathering whatever nature and the universe offered us each day, happy to be in this open playground of wildlife and nature with all its abundant beauty.

The Hadza, as well as the Maasai — the pastoral, semi-nomadic tribe, draped in dramatic red and purple garb, shepherding their flocks in green, verdant valleys –live daily with the pressures of uncertainty concerning land management, distribution of resources, and over-population. Without the sophistication, education, or privilege we westerners have, these African peoples manage their lives with a resilience, a rootedness, a gratitude and sense of enoughness few of us in the west know.

We think, in America, with our paved roads and concrete cities and privileged lifestyles, we can wall out the uncertainties and unpredictabilities that mark our lives as human beings. We think, in America, with our cushioned dwellings and protected suburbs and police surveillance, we can wall out danger and devastation from our families. We expect too much. We delude ourselves. There will always be an El Nino to disturb our scheduled tranquillity.

There will always be bumps in the road and washed out passages between ourselves and where we want to go. There will always be the challenge of dealing with what today has in store for us as we make our way towards tomorrow. There will always be an Africa in our lives.

And who can speak of the splendor and struggle of Africa without mentioning its wondrous wildlife? We came upon animal kills with buzzards and hyenas ripping the flesh of their newly downed prey, while wildebeests and zebra grazed quietly by. We lay hushed in tents in open wilderness, listening to rain, to the roar of a lion in the valley below, to the snorting of warthogs routing just inches away, to the magical sounds of tropical birds in morning’s first light.

In the Mahale Mountains beside Lake Tanganyika, we sat in wondrous awe mere feet away from chimpanzees lounging, playing, chasing freely, wordlessly connected by our common ancestry, wondrously reminded of our natural need for play and touch.

I left Africa, filled to the heartbrim with images and sounds and feelings I will savor into my old age, accepting of my need to rip myself from the fabric of African life in order to immerse myself again into my own, grateful for the connections to which I return, sad and happy at the same moment.

I was met at the airport by my daughter and eight month old grandson, the rich texture which forms the fabric of my life. She informed me of her plans to move five hours away, to Hilton Head Island, for all the right reasons. I was struck, again, with the unpredictable and unrelenting bump and turn in the road of which we are all vulnerable.

The roads are not paved in Tanzania. They are not paved in our own lives either. Change and unpredictability and new challenges are always just ahead. Gathering what the day offers and delighting in the abundance of the moment is all we dare do.   

In the winter of 1998, I was in Africa, in Tanzania, on safari.
 
The local chief of one village invited us to his home to meet his wife and child.

The dwelling was a small hut made from cow dung. There were no windows — less access for flies and mosquitoes — and a small flap door. The interior was totally black, no lighting, another way of denying flies easy access. We had to hold hands as we bent our way in, moving along the wall until we realized the line had stopped and we were to sit, in darkness. Silence.

In a few moments, the darkness began to clear and faint images appeared. Shadowy body shapes along the wall, colors, shadowy faces; then, objects in the room. As our vision cleared and we began to see, we noticed the woman and child sitting in the corner. She had been there all along, but we could not see her in the darkness.

The darkness calls forth a helpful light: light present in the dark, not visible at first, then astonishingly present. How can we not see it? How can we miss what is there all along?

Light and dark live side by side, included in the other, one reality. We just can’t see it from our biased perspective. We’re uncomfortable with ambiguity. We don’t want to see the darkness lurking in the light; we don’t want our bright times muted by the dark within it. Our either/or thinking categorizes; it’s either light or it’s dark, good or bad. We miss the wholeness in things. 

Sitting in the darkness of that dung hut gave my vision time to clear, to allow in the light that was there all along, initially hidden. I had to sit and wait. I knew I would see what I came to see, but I didn’t know when. I didn’t know how long it would take. I didn’t even know exactly what I would see. I just knew I would see. And then I did see, exactly what I came for.

I’ve heard it said that hope is remembering in the dark what I know to be true in the light. Hope is remembering that the light is there, that I will see again, feel light again, even though I am now mired in darkness. Like a sacred chord of memory that winds its way back to some forgotten, ancient wisdom within, I re-member, reconnect with resources within and without me. 

Just like the shadowy figures that emerged on the walls as I sat in the dark of that African hut, shadowy insights of what resources are available to me for healing begin to appear on the walls of my emotional darkness. Forgotten at first, due to my dark mood, then visibly clear.

I re-member, reassemble those resources that have been there for me all along – the people who love me, my gifts and passions, the healing presence of nature, the things about my life that restore me to wholeness. The life that nurtures me in the light can do this for me in the dark. If I can remain open to these healing powers already available to me, I can find the energy to allow them to carry me back into the light. 

Besides the resources that bless my life, these shadowy images illuminate in the dark those things about my life I need to change. The darkness pulls the shade over my energy so I am forced to bring my focus inward and get in touch with what isn’t working in my life.

The darkness highlights, singles out what needs to be the focus of my attention, things I need to change, things I cannot see in the glare of everyday living. Perhaps my career is not satisfying, my relationships, my spiritual journey. I can change these once I can identify them.

The light present in our darkness is the same light available to us in the light moments of our life. It is a numinous light, just beyond our conscious mind. We don’t stop to notice the subtle shift of light, the color differentiation in the rainbow color, when we are in the light. We miss what Robert Johnson, a Jungian analyst, calls those slender golden threads that guide us and shape our lives. 

We realize only afterwards that there seemed to be some larger power or energy at work in our life that opened up new opportunity, new energy, a new fork in the road. The more we can integrate these shadowy images into our conscious living, the more we can cooperate with them and make them work for us.

Discovering the light present in the darkness, discerning the subtle change of light when we are in the light – these are the tools given us by a God who first called light out of darkness so that we, too, can create a life that can heal.

What I know is that my experience in that humble dwelling in Africa stays with me today as a metaphor for how to sit and wait in the dark until the light present in it makes itself available to me. It teaches me how to become more sensitive to the shifting light in both the dark and light of my life. It reminds me to look for the surprise, the emerging other in all things, the not-yet-recognized of what is trying to catch my attention.

Those shadowy images on the wall become, for me, images of my own becoming.